The spring Christian Dior collection walked in Paris earlier today. Dior still has not replaced fired creative director John Galliano, who lost his job after being arrested for hurling racial abuse at a couple in a Paris café six months ago, so studio head Bill Gaytten took the bow at the show's conclusion. Karolina Kurkova opened, wearing a houndstooth '50s-style blazer and a cream organza skirt. Karlie Kloss, wearing a black lace dress with a sheer pink skirt, closed — meaning the last thing the fashion press saw was her nearly-naked butt sashaying back down the runway. (And a million bad bloggers hit publish on totes original "cheeky" puns...) The collection was restrained (contrary to the insanely haphazard couture show Gaytten oversaw): neat, even prim, clothes that owe a big debt to vintage styles and the house's own archives. Kimono sleeves, full skirts, boat necks. A sort of Dior greatest-hits album — with all the nostalgia, familiarity, and the cashing-in that term implies. It was, dare we say it, a tad boring. Orlando BloomandLeighton Meester are among the celebrities who showed. When asked about Galliano's replacement, C.E.O. Sidney Toledano reportedly told the press, "Show some patience!" [AP]
"Marc Jacobs is still seen as the frontrunner for the job, though talks have been tough and recently at a standstill, sources said." And the Galliano scandal does not appear to have tarnished the Dior brand: Toledano reports that the fall collection, which of course Galliano mostly designed, has been selling very well. [WWD]

After fifteen years at Christian Dior, John Galliano was fired for inveterate alcoholism and being…
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Style.com's Meenal Mistry
reports that Paris cabbies maintain a passing familiarity with the goings-on at Dior. [@MeenalMistry
]
Also without a creative director this season is Ungaro
, which cut ties with Giles Deacon
just last month. (Deacon's fall collection is shown at right.) Ungaro has seen a revolving door of creative directors since Emanuel Ungaro retired in 2005. Literally everyone has had a try at designing Ungaro, up to and includingLindsay Lohan
. The house thinks it can get by on "heritage" styles for this season, and obviously there's a design team in place, but going leaderless is a risky move in fashion. The press hates it, for one thing, because the press is very invested in the notion of the designer-as-individual-genius: the Great Man theory of Fashion, if you will. And customers, too, are infected by this idea; part of what you're paying for when you buy a $3,000 dress is the knowledge that it was touched by a highly trained set of human hands working from a unique aesthetic vision. Right now, you can't buy Ungaro dresses (or Ungaro anything else) at any U.S. department store. They've all dropped the line. [WSJ
]
Olivier Rousteing
's first collection for Balmain
has been warmly greeted by critics. Suzy Menkes calls it "a hit." Christina Binkley says, "Toreador jackets, tight leather pants and beaded tunics were pure ‘Balmain,' which is to say, sexy, wildly embellished with metallic details, and impossibly expensive." Which is to say Rousteing finally made Balmain look as expensive as it is overpriced, we suppose. [IHT
, WSJ]
A Fashionista writer went to the Bronx for a $10 manicure
with nail art: "Surprisingly, the tiger stripes take the least amount of time. I blink and the tech's pulling out what I hope is topcoat from a bottle labeled 'chicken essence.'
Whatever — I got exactly what I was envisioning. Lisa Frank
's tiger would be so jealous." Chicken essence! [Fashionista
]
This is what Kanye West's show invitation
looks like. [High Snobiety
]
And this is what Kanye West
looks like posing for a photo with a London fabric wholesaler and his son. The rapper stopped in to buy some zippers and fabric, and stayed for a cup of tea. [BBC
]
Comme des Garçons
' new perfume bottle is made from recycled glass, made to appear as though it were melting. [High Snobiety
]
We do not know what this hilarious picture of Fergie
posing with the two most bored-looking Russian male models in the world has to do with the launch of her new perfume, but we are glad that it exists. The photo, we mean. The perfume probably sucks. [Make Her Up
]
The model Danielle Zinaich
— whom we did not realize was 36 — wears Alexander Wang
and army surplus shirts. [Fashionista
]
For an editorial in Schön
magazine, Rick "Zombie Boy" Genest
was Photoshopped and made up to appear as though he had not in fact tattooed a trompe l'oeil skull onto his face. (Here
are some photos of Zombie Boy pre-tattoos.) [DS
]

Isaac Mizrahi is now a very wealthy man — but he is also, once again, a designer without a high-end collection. In a just-announced deal, Mizrahi has a new financial backer, and is understood to be phasing out his Isaac Mizrahi Collection line in favor of more licensing deals. Mizrahi didn't show his collection at fashion week this season; he instead sent out a lookbook. Mizrahi's new partner/owner is a newly formed company called Xcel Brands. Xcel paid Mizrahi $31.5 million in cash and stock for the rights to his licensing operation, IM Ready-Made LLC, and Mizrahi will likely earn another $10 million annually in royalties. Over the next four years, Mizrahi could earn up to an additional $31.7 million if sales of the goods bearing his name meet certain targets. [WWD]

Dita Von Teese says that her most important goal when helping conceptualize her namesake perfume was not smelling like baked goods. "It was really important to me that I didn't smell like sweets. Even when I was a little girl, I hated being a little girl. I always felt like I was watching the clock ticking, thinking, ‘When can I be a grown-up woman? When do I get to wear this lingerie and this perfume? And wear fancy gowns and lipstick?'...We're constantly, as women, told that we should appeal to men, and you know, 'men love vanilla' — and you know I just really don't want to smell like a cake. I don't want to be treated like a little girl or be told I am a little girl. I want to wear a perfume that makes me feel strong and powerful, that makes me feel good. Because, ultimately, that's more important than what attracts a man. My theory is what attracts a man is a confident woman who is not looking for approval from anyone else." [WWD]

Joanna Lumley has more advice on how to be a grown-up woman: "I think it's important for women to be daring and not worry what people say. When it comes to fashion, I know I look good in cheap clothes. I suit the high street, not designer fashion. I love what people might call mutton-dressed-as-lamb shops. I love layering clothes, like young girls wear. I like being experimental with fashion. People often say you can't have long hair over 40. Bullshit to that! I want long hair and I'm going to keep my long hair." [Telegraph]

Out magazine nominated some gay men for its Best and Worst-Dressed lists and then opened it to a public vote; Johnny Weir made the top five. Of both lists. [Out]

A new site called FullBeauty.com launched this week. It specializes in bras sizes 36B to 50N, but it also features plus-size shapewear, hosiery, slips, camisoles, underwear, robes and sleepwear. "There's Victoria's Secret, which owns the misses' market, but there really is no [retail] competition in the marketplace for the plus-size bra business, and the beauty of this is there are very few players," Michelle Crawbuck, the vice-president and brand manager said. "Bras are among the most highly technical products to manufacture, with 40 components or more. That's why people don't dabble in the plus-size bra business — it's too complicated, and we've been doing it for years." [WWD]

The BBC has an interesting article about whether fashion is finally moving towards being a female-dominated industry on the design side. [BBC]

Sonia Rykiel has named April Crichton its new creative director. It's an internal promotion: Crichton has worked alongside Rykiel and helped develop the Sonia by Sonia Rykiel line. [WWD]

Catherine Malandrino — whose business has been said to be in trouble — closed her New York store "for inventory." But apparently the company hasn't paid its staff in weeks. [Racked]

In 1984, Eliot Weinberger wrote an essay called "The Dream Of India," in which he collected various of the strange "facts" about India that had been reported authoritatively by writers in the West, long before the subcontinent had actually been fully explored by Europeans. "In India a year has two summers and two winters," goes one. Another is, "In India they write the title of a book at the end." And, "In India when a child is born, people show particular attention to the man, not to the woman. Of two children they give preference to the younger, for they maintain that the elder owes his birth to predominant lust, while the younger owes his origin to mature reflection and calm proceeding." It's a shame Weinberger couldn't have today's Women's Wear Daily on his reading list, because if he had, he might have added, "In India there will exist within the next two years 50 stores bearing the Paris Hilton name." And also, "Paris Hilton finds India very inspiring." Because those are things that, today, people in the West are saying about India. [WWD]

There is now such a thing as magnetic nail polish. Tiny particles of iron are in the polish, and as the nail is drying, you pass the magnet hidden in the cap over the nail. The magnetic cap has a pattern so that the iron particles will form designs, like waves. Thanks, science! [CoolHunting]

"My latest exhibition [is] the ‘Fun House Changing Room,'" Hovnanian explains as she walks toward a new mirror. "The changing room is where you see all these physical faults and you're really alone with them under this bad lighting and you're trying on a swimsuit — it's the most intimate piece of clothing that we ever wear in public, and you can just feel so awful about yourself. And you usually do."

First displayed in 2009, "Fun House Changing Room" incorporates a visibly warped mirror (it obviously shows its curves and twists, "unlike those in actual department store dressing rooms," Hovnanian laughs) and a series of white one-piece swimsuits labeled in their respective sizes. Approaching the mirror, a motion sensor triggers an audio recording, in which a beleaguered voice tells viewers how unattractive they look.

"You need more Botox," the voice sighs. "You can't wear this out there. She wore the same thing, you saw the pictures on Facebook. She looked so much better than you. You shouldn't have eaten those Cheetos."

Hovnanian says, "I'm trying to confront these things...before they devour us all alive." [WWD]